Hyperlocal grocery delivery startup HappyFresh brings ninja shoppers to Indonesia

Benjamin Koellmann, co-founder and COO of HappyFresh

The HappyFresh office is tucked away in an ageing building in Jakarta’s central Menteng district. The location is a bit weird because you wouldn’t expect to find one of Indonesia’s most talked-about startups so far away from “Slipicon Valley.” It’s a Friday evening and most of Jakarta’s business folks have gone home for the weekend. It looks like the HappyFresh team didn’t get the memo. The cramped office is still buzzing with activity. Co-founder and COO Benjamin Koellmann pokes his head around a corner.

You may recognize Koellmann as the former COO of Lazada Indonesia. He’s also one of the rare people who managed to stay with the fast-moving Rocket Internet firm for more than two years. “I have to say that Rocket is a super valuable experience for anyone […] However, Rocket has a really high turnover rate,” says Koellmann. “It’s a really high-intensity atmosphere, and you can never bond with anyone because people are always leaving for one reason or another – often to start their own businesses.”

Last October, Koellmann decided to do the same. His learning curve at Lazada had flattened out and he was ready for a new challenge.

Koellmann describes HappyFresh as a mobile-first online marketplace for existing grocery retailers. You may recall the headlines back in March when the firm announced its launch in both Kuala Lumpur and Jakarta. The startup is supported by a seven-figure undisclosed round of pre-series A funding. The investors are a bunch of mysterious VC firms, international angels, and institutional backers, whose identities are still secret.

See: New Sukamart offers to deliver your groceries in Indonesia

Grocery school for green-shirted shoppers

There are a lot of moving parts to HappyFresh’s operation. In this early stage, anyone who wants to use the service must first have a smartphone. Koellmann says HappyFresh does have a website coming soon, but that the startup aims to do everything on a mobile-first basis, as that’s what the team believes the market calls for.

HappyFresh employs around 100 field personnel in Jakarta, which includes in-store shoppers and delivery drivers. Koellmann says his team is hiring new people each week, which means at the time of publishing this article, HappyFresh could already have more than 120 people delivering groceries in Jakarta.

According to Koellmann, HappyFresh also has a rigorous training process for anyone who wants to be an in-store shopper. He calls it the “HappyFresh Academy.” It consists of a two-week tutorial that teaches employees how best to pick the right food and maintain a high-quality user experience in the offline world.

“We also provide them with phones, and riders and shoppers have an internal company app so they know what they need to do,” explains Koellmann. “The internal app routes orders and gives them instructions. We can track each order at every stage […] If something is out of stock or the quality of what is left isn’t good enough, the shopper will call you [the customer], let you know, and help you pick something else if necessary.”

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